Billy Allen & The Pollies

In the time since they blew the roof off our Lodge in January, Billy Allen & The Pollies have been touring hard across the nation, including a blazing run of shows at SXSW. They’ve been gaining new fans at a clip and playing larger and larger venues. We’re thrilled to have them back at TOURISTS for a little R&R and an intimate show. Not. To. Be. Missed.

ADMISSION IS FREE – SEATING IS FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED. DONATIONS TO THE ARTISTS WELCOMED AND ENCOURAGED.

Listening to this band feels like walking on the alien terrain of a new genre. It sounds like garage grunge by way of Jackie Wilson. The very same kerchief Billy Allen uses to wipe sweat from his brow on stage could be carrying DNA from Wilson Pickett, Joe Cocker, D’Angelo, Ziggy Stardust, or any of the Spiders from Mars. Theirs is a gritty and trailblazing sound. They are a band full of smiling time travelers, able to visit and draw from a multitude of eras and styles. Their sound devastates you to the point of remembering why you love music. This is the type of band you root for. You can’t help it. They’re that damn good.

The band is a hybrid of four-piece rock outfit The Pollies and fellow Alabamian, and frontman, Billy Allen. The story of what fused Allen and The Pollies is one that begins in a bar 8 years ago. This particular bar was on Allen’s gig circuit and it just so happens to be where Jay Burgess (founder of The Pollies) was having a drink that evening. While there was intrigue and potential in that first chance meeting, the two would remain ships in the night, each building their own careers, until years later when the stars would align at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals. As the story goes, both Allen and The Pollies, who were all occasional session musicians at FAME, were finally in the room together and the track on deck was Little Richard’s “Greenwood, MS”.

To hear Allen retell this part of the story is to hear a man talk about the beginnings of a priceless friendship. “There was an immediate romantic musical connection,” Allen said. “This is my band.” To hear Burgess tell it, the feeling was mutual. Over the subsequent year, the two groups rehearsed, toured, wrote, and gelled together under the moniker Billy Allen + The Pollies. The joining of Billy and Jay (along with the other charter members of The Pollies: Spencer Duncan, Jon Davis & Clint Chandler) was like the clicking of a dislocated bone back into true.